


Burn

by rabid_plotbunny



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, M/M, Not a Happy Story, One n/c scene, Pre-Crisis Core, possible slight timeline issue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-28
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-11-07 03:06:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17952470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabid_plotbunny/pseuds/rabid_plotbunny
Summary: The making of Genesis; what made him turn out like he did?





	Burn

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on IJ/LJ 12-15-2008
> 
> I think this version of Genesis needs lots and lots of love, the poor guy. I'm not sure where this all came from since this isn't usually how I see him at all, but it does seem to work and it does fit with his 'my parents betrayed me' semi-rant at that factory in Banora...
> 
> Usually, I see him as more of a dreamy idealist type who just got hit in the face one too many times with Shinra's ugly-truth stick. All he really wanted was to be good, to be a hero, but as long as Sephiroth was around he never really got the chance, did he? No matter what he did, the credit for it would always have been dumped on Seph, like it was for Zack on the Wutai/Fort Tamblin chapter. *wibble*

No one had ever asked him.

If he wanted to be singled out from the other children in the little town. If he wanted to go with Hollander. If he wanted to be part of their great Project at all. If he wanted to have glowing stuff pumped into him with far too many needles. If he wanted the changes that the chemical cocktail gave him, making him even more separate from the other children than he was before. If he wanted to spend his hours undergoing endless streams of tests in the lab when the other children were out playing.

No one had ever asked if he wanted any of it, not even once.

They just came to the house one day and his parents handed him over, like it was nothing. As if they hadn't taken care of him all his life. As if the people he had been so certain loved him had actually thought of him as something else, something separate from themselves. As if he had just been some sort of pet that they had been taking care of temporarily.

That first night when one of Hollander's assistants brought him back home, sweating and nauseous, shaking from the introduction of some nameless substance into his bloodstream, his mother barely took the time to make sure he got to bed before going back to whatever she had been doing, leaving him alone in his room.

It was never the same after that.

He wasn't stupid. He could feel the wall that suddenly stood between him and his parents, radiating ice with the strength of a Blizzaga. They weren't cruel or abusive like some of the parents in the town, but they were no longer warm, either. It hurt at first, not knowing why Mommy suddenly didn't care about him, why Daddy didn't smile and call him his little boy any more. It hurt, but he soon realized that the hurt, the tears, gained him nothing but a stuffy nose and sore eyes in addition to the heartsick.

So he tried not caring.

He tried freezing out the hurt, freezing everything out, but the cold and ice were not for him.

He was a lot more at home with fire.

So he burned.

***

By the time he was six, he'd become a quiet, aloof child, with a tongue grown sharp with sarcasm and disdain. He took the treatments Hollander gave him because he had no choice, then spent most of his free time in his parents' library. He learned quickly and soon left the simpler, illustrated works behind in his unquenchable quest for knowledge. It wasn't unusual for a servant to see him there, sitting on his little booster seat at the big table in the library, some thick tome open on the table before him, a dictionary at his left, pen and paper at his right.

He was always alone.

And then he wasn't.

There was another boy. Like him, only not like him. He was experimented on and quiet as well, but that was where the similarities ended. He was warm where Genesis was cold, friendly and open where fiery sarcasm ruled, loved by his parents where _he_ was not. The first time Angeal brought Genesis to his tiny house and he had seen how the other boy's mother doted on him, he'd had to leave. He couldn't stay there and witness that warmth, that caring, knowing what waited for him at home.

By the time he got home that night it was long dark. He went in the front door, slammed it loudly behind him. His parents didn't even glance up as he passed by the parlor where they sat.

They certainly paid attention when he started to systematically destroy the dining room, though. With the unnatural strength Hollander's experiments had given him, it was an easy enough task. Smash the heavy table in two, yank the crystal chandelier from the ceiling, smash the chairs against the walls and throw them through the windows.

Yet all he earned for all his effort and anger was a bland 'Genesis, go to your room.'

He wished they would burn. Burn like he did with every new needle, with every indifferent glance. Anger, _rage_... hurt.

No.

He didn't hurt. He _didn't_. Anger was all. Anger was everything.

Why couldn't anyone _see_ him?

He started wearing shades of red, flame colors to match both his hair and the angry fire burning inside. Surely _now_ someone would notice him, would _see_...

But nothing changed.

***

He saw the world painted in black and grey, a place where everyone else was sharp-edged, distinct, people. Saw them interact with each other without even seeing him standing there, crimson from head to toe. Not unless they wanted something from him. Casual conversation, friendly interaction, was something for others. 

He was seven when he finally realized why.

People talked and did things with other people. They didn't do it with him. Therefore, he was not people. He was not really a person; he had just thought he was. Why hadn't anyone told him? Had they found his efforts amusing? Did they laugh when he wasn't there, like they did when a pet did something silly? _'Oh, look, Genesis think he's people. Isn't it just too cute?'_

Let them laugh, then. He didn't care.

He _didn't._

He wished they would burn.

He wished he could _make_ them burn. And why not? He wasn't a person, so why should he live by rules meant for people?

Then there was Angeal.

Angeal, who tried to talk to him, to get him to talk to him, for no reason Genesis could understand. What was the point? Why would the other boy bother with someone like him unless he wanted something?

But Angeal never asked for anything.

And after Genesis hesitantly told him not to, he didn't try to get the redhead to go visit at his house, instead playing out in the fields and orchards when they weren't in the lab and Genesis was not in the library.

Despite himself, he couldn't help thawing towards the persistant brunet, just a little.

***

He was a whip-thin and sharp-edged thirteen when his gift for fire first revealed itself.

He was on the way back home from the lab when one of Hollander's assistants caught up to him on the trail. Not expecting anything, he'd been caught off-guard when the man spritzed something in his face that stung his eyes and made the world go away with astounding swiftness.

When he woke up he found himself lying on the ground and feeling extremely weak, his head pounding, his limbs heavy and hard to control as if they were over-cooked noodles filled with lead. Weather-worn cliffs rose into the sky all around him, somewhere near that old decrepit factory if he wasn't mistaken. It had been closed for years and no one ever went up that way anymore. They were alone. Isolated. 

The assistant knelt beside him, putting the finishing touches on the knots in the rope around his wrists.

Genesis looked at him through stinging, reddened eyes. "My parents don't care about me, so if it's ransom you want, you've got the wrong guy."

The man looked at him, one hand rising to stroke a pale cheek. "I don't care about money," he said. "You're pretty."

Genesis frowned. If it wasn't money, then why...? Then he felt the man fumbling at his belt and knew. He'd read the biology books, the psychology texts. He knew what the man wanted to do to him. He squirmed, kicked, brought his bound hands down to push the man away. He was still weakened by the drug and had never been taught how to fight, but that didn't stop him from trying.

He froze as that little spray bottle made an appearance.

"You don't _have_ to be awake," the man said, glaring.

Stunned by the fact that the other wasn't even _pretending_ to care about him, that he didn't care if he was conscious or not as long as he got what he wanted, he was startled first by the sudden rush of air that accompanied his pants being abruptly yanked down his thighs, then by the mouthful of dirt he got as he was flipped over onto his stomach, his hips yanked unceremoniously up into the air. He heard the sound of a zipper, the rustle of fabric, and felt a black rage take him.

Was this it?

Was this what his life was?

An invisible not-person, good only for scientific experimentation and now this?

He burned with the rage, the anger that had been building for years.

He wished they would burn. All of them. Everyone who saw him only as a thing.

He wished he could _make_ them burn, starting with the one who was now taking his place behind him.

He wanted them to _burn._

And then they did.

He felt a searing heat burst inside him, inferno-hot though it didn't burn him, then felt the drain as it found an outlet.

The lab assistant didn't even have time to scream as he was suddenly and without warning engulfed in a pillar of white-hot fire that shot up fifty feet into the air. Within mere seconds there weren't even ashes left and the fire was gone, the only trace of its presence the small patch of melted rock where the man had been kneeling.

Genesis spit out his mouthful of dirt, sat up on his feet. The rope at his wrists tugged, then with a small flare was gone before he'd even consciously thought about the fire. He could feel it inside him even then, roiling and surging, just waiting for the opportunity to come out again. He lifted a hand and concentrated, was rewarded for his effort by a small ball of fire growing in his hand. Still it never burned him. He somehow knew that it never would.

He grinned slightly, blue eyes hard and cold, then got up and put himself to rights before starting the trek back home.

He would keep the fire to himself, would tell no one.

Then one day...

...he would make them all burn.

***

He was fifteen when he left Banora for Midgar, Angeal tagging along like the faithful dog everyone thought Genesis was.

He had thought that once he got there, once he joined Shinra, once he got into SOLDIER, that would be the end of Hollander's damned experiments.

He was wrong.

They only seemed to get worse as close proximity to his professional rival Hojo made Hollander even more determined to bypass the man and claim the title of Head of their department. And to do that, he had to make Genesis better than Hojo's silver pet, Sephiroth.

More needles, more chemicals pumped into his system, more long nights puking his guts out from sickness afterwards, only to stumble out of bed at reveille the next morning with everyone else for training and drills and more training and more drills.

He wished Hollander and Hojo and the entire Science Department would burn.

He wished he could _make_ them burn.

He kept the fire inside, hidden, and waited.

**END**


End file.
